Egypt is chasing the producers of grits.. so what is the story?

Cairo -

If you go as a tourist to Egypt, you will find that one of the most important foods that friends recommend you to eat is pigeons or ducks stuffed with grits, and not many people, when they eat it at first glance, can differentiate between it and rice, but the truth is that the grits is not rice but rather unfinished wheat.

The interesting thing is that the grits jumped to the fore in the recent period, but not in the context of talking about stuffing pigeons, chickens or ducks, and the matter came to the point that the police arrested two Egyptians because of the grits, so what is the story?

Since the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine - last February - the Egyptian government has moved through a package of measures to control wheat production and consumption in Egypt, in order to avoid a food crisis in the country. However, official control has become more assertive;

It recently extended to refer violators of its tendencies to the Public Prosecution.

Freekeh is famous in Egyptian and North African cuisine. It is unripe wheat, or “green wheat or green wheat.” It is dried and exposed to intense heat in ovens, and crushed to become 3 times less than a grain of wheat.

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The most recent of these measures was two days ago, when the Supply Directorate issued 20 violation reports to farmers from Minya Governorate (south of Cairo) claiming to transfer quantities of wheat into grits. Albilad), and the accusations leveled against them - according to what was reported by local media - included occupying the road and building ovens without a permit, as well as environmental violations.

Freekeh is famous in Egyptian and North African cuisine. It is unripe wheat. It is "green wheat or green wheat", and it is dried and exposed to intense heat in ovens, and crushed to become 3 times less than a grain of wheat.

The southern governorates are the most famous for extracting grits from wheat, led by Minya, Assiut and Sohag.

According to the (governmental) Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt relied on Russia and Ukraine to import 80% of the total wheat imported from abroad during 2021.

Freak warning

The head of the Egyptian Farmers Syndicate, Hussein Abu Saddam, warned against harvesting wheat before it is fully ripe to turn it into grits, explaining that this phenomenon causes a decrease in the general productivity of wheat by about 20%.

In previous television statements, Abu Saddam called on citizens to use rice instead of grits in their meals, saying, "Stuff the ducks with rice instead of grits," noting that manufacturing grits in light of the current crisis is dangerous, and preparing foods using it is a luxury that must be avoided.

The captain called on the government to support wheat farmers by offering soft loans with low interest rates, disbursing the dues of the farmer as soon as he supplies the quantities of wheat he is committed to, and providing certified high-yield seeds at reasonable prices, and the necessary pesticides to eliminate diseases that affect grains during their growth.

For his part, the head of the agricultural services sector at the Ministry of Agriculture, Abbas El-Shinawy, said that the issuance of records of crop destruction for those who manufacture grits from wheat comes in implementation of the ministerial decision that obligated farmers to supply wheat to the government compulsorily.

He added - in television statements - that burning green wheat grains is an old custom called Freekeh, explaining at the same time that the area in which it is burned is very limited and does not affect the cultivated area.

The price of a kilo of freekeh reaches about 30 pounds (the dollar equals 18.38 pounds), while a kilo of flour does not exceed 10 pounds, and perhaps the high price of the grits is what prompts farmers to weigh its weight on fully-ripened wheat.

And last March, Minister of Industry Nevin Jameh issued a decision to stop the export of a group of goods for a period of 3 months, including grits.

Egypt imports more than 10 million tons of wheat to cover its annual consumption of about 16 million tons, and the rest is obtained from local production.

government actions

With the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine, Egyptian fears about the future of importing wheat from Moscow and Kiev were prompted. These fears were translated into reassuring government statements about the strategic stock and expert analyzes calling for caution.

The government announced strict measures with the aim of controlling the local wheat market, with parallel efforts to search for alternatives to importing the grains that Egyptians rely mainly on for their meals.

As part of measures that some saw as unfair, the Ministry of Supply issued a decision obligating farmers to hand over at least 12 ardebs for each acre they cultivate, according to the agricultural holding registered in the Ministry of Agriculture, with the prohibition of selling what remains to the farmer of the cultivated quantity to other than the ministry’s marketing agencies.

At the same time, the Council of Ministers approved an increase in the price of an ardeb of wheat by 170 pounds, compared to last season, to reach 885 pounds, knowing that an ardeb is equivalent to about 150 kilograms.

And Finance Minister Mohamed Maait announced last month the allocation of 1.1 billion pounds as an advance payment to purchase local wheat from farmers. The government also announced its commitment to grant farmers dues within 48 hours of supplying the prescribed quantities of wheat, with 450 points provided for receiving the crop;

This is to make it easier for farms and reduce the cost of transporting grain, and to provide automatic harvesting machines for crops.

Those facilities were a carrot for farmers, and the stick was the threat by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture with 3 penalties pending for those who refuse to supply wheat to the government, which is the filing of a report against him before the Public Prosecution, stopping the disbursement of subsidized fertilizers, and depriving him of the ration subsidy, which amounts to 50 pounds for each citizen.

A report issued by the Cabinet Information Center expected that Egypt’s wheat production would increase this year by about 11%, noting that the cultivated wheat area increased by 7.4%, reaching 3.65 million feddans in 2022, compared to 3.4 million feddans in 2021.

cheap price

In an article titled "Marie Antoinette and the Farmers' Syndicate", journalist Maged Habta talked about the Egyptians' consumption of frick, and saw the expansion of its markets in recent years, especially in the southern governorates, pointing to the expansion of farmers in its production.

He explained that all the cultivated areas in some villages were converted from wheat to grits, in conjunction with the opening of foreign markets to export it to Arab and European countries.

The newspaper writer warned of a food crisis in Egypt due to the shortage of wheat, noting that the lack of bread was the cause of the French Revolution, and he was also a major hero in the American Civil War.

In the same context, Abdel Tawab Barakat, an advisor to the former Egyptian Minister of Supply, said that the compulsory supply and the low price in Egypt were - and still are - the biggest reason for the impoverishment of wheat farmers and deliberately distracting them from growing it to other less important crops, some of which are marginal or provocative, and the result is that Egypt has become The largest importer of wheat in the world, and suffers from frequent bread crises, in an article entitled "Forcing farmers to supply wheat exacerbates the bread crisis in Egypt."